Facial scanning techniques may be used to create digital doubles in media works. For example, facial scanning can be used to generate animated representations of a subject for a movie, a video game, or other media work. Facial scanning oftentimes includes capturing scans or images of a subject as the subject performs different facial expressions. The scans typically contain a superposition of the desired expression on top of unwanted rigid head movement. Rigid stabilization is a technique that may be used to extract true expression deformations of the subject by factoring out rigid head movement for each expression. Rigid stabilization is typically performed using a manual process. Manual processes for performing rigid stabilization are tedious, error prone, and lead to inaccurate results.